The '80s. Before IEPs.

This is the world now. It's the 2nd grade.

"Losing sucks. I can't possibly lose. I can't conceive of a world in which I've lost. I can't work in a world where I've lost.

"I will contrive the world to my own advantage. I will kill, lie, destroy, steal, pillage, and salt the earth. I will make my loss as unbearable to everyone around me as I can until I'm handed a win.

"And then, when I've got what I want, I'll make everyone regret having conceived of going against me. Others' suffering secures my power."

This isn't a society. It's an abusive relationship with all the hallmarks of a hostage situation.

Needless to say, every answer on this list spoils the movie. But, really, how it happens is as essential as what happens.

Everyone

• Melancholia (one of the saddest movies I've seen)

• Knowing (a little Nicholas Cage never hurt anybody)

• Don't Look Up (so well done, great soundtrack)

• On the Beach (1959, classic!)

• Sunshine (Alex Garland's swing)

Religious undertones

• Constantine ("coffin nail")

• Dogma (God/Alanis Morissette is the real hero)

• Meet Joe Black (the first death is the hardest)

Anti-Heroes

• Logan (heroes never die, right?)

• White Heat (1949, classic!)

• Kiss Me, Deadly (film noir, "the great whatsit")

• Dancer in the Dark (Björk, another saddest film)

Dumped at an indeterminate location in space.

Vac suit or no, its a location with no landmarks, no resources, no surfaces... nothing. Can't move, can't be seen, can't call for help, can't survive.

I guess, the only upside is no sharks. But those micro-meteroid showers would certainly leave a mark punctures through your body. Like a shark.

In rapid succession:

• Sustainable energy now open-source

• Rewilding commons yields global benefits

• Atmospheric CO2 reaches pre-industrial levels

• World Food Programme ends human hunger

• World Rejoices in universal debt jubilee

• Humanity achieves intergenerational wealth for all

• First Contact Consensus: Together, We Ascend

Is this a "from my cold dead hands" situation?

Because it seems like:

a. AI would respond, "challenge accepted."

b. AI would also respond, "just like ours."

The quote is read out in this 2 minute clip. Some more besides.

From my own viewing experience, these are my recommendations that I did not see yet in the thread:

• Throne of Blood (1957)

Macbeth in feudal Japan.

• The Killing (1956)

Heist movie, early Kubrick

• The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Some early sci-fi. Superior to the Keanu Reeves remake.

• Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

• Giant (1956)

A pair of James Dean roles. Unbelievable, raw talent.

• Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Un peu de film noir.

• On the Beach (1959)

Goes well with Dr. Strangelove (1962) and Fail-Safe (1962).

Previously mentioned, and I can't help but include:

• Vertigo

• Rashomon

Edit: comments and a revision below.

• Paths of Glory (1957) — someone beat me by an hour.

• That the rapture was imminent.

• That being black means you have to try twice as hard to get half as far.

• That "success" comes from hard work.

• That heaven is a real place.

• That we live in the best of all possible worlds.

Responses, in order:

We made it past the ones I heard about in 1988, 1992, 1996, 1997, 1999, 1 January 2000, and the infamous 21 Decmber 2012. It seems that predicting "the end of the world" isn't best left to zealots. However, climate modelling seems to be fairly accurate so far...

Being black (myself) has resulted in my trying twice as hard. I haven't yet made it half as far. Racism, in point of fact, sets EVERYONE back. Dismantling racism, and every other bigotry besides, gets us to the starting line.

Success — under a sustainable, humanistic, virtue-seeking, equitable rubric — eludes everyone who believes in its attainment within an explotative, supremacist, advantage-imbalanced, wealth-dominated system. There is no point at all in seeking success when drowning is the result of failure. Survival is sufficient for most. Some degree of comfort is luxury. Success, neutral buoyancy or flight beyond the trappings of this capitalist ocean, is a gate-kept and forcibly protected status. As it always has been. Desire for an echelon beyond survival, a measure of "success", depends on building connections to the gate-keepers or building new gates to keep; not "hard work."

Well, hell is real. We keep making it more real and with newer manifestations. Witness Gaza. Every warscape from Ukraine to Iran to South Sudan to Yemen. Every austerity measure. Every policy that disproportionately protects wealth and punctuates poverty. Heaven, on the other hand, is a vanishingly narrow set of possibilities. Basking in the glory of this world, and the universe writ large, could be real. But, again, hellscapes are more profitable.

Time travel, whether by quantum tunnelling or in a phone booth or DeLorean with a flux-capacitor, might permit us to test out possible worlds. Without time travel, or some multiversal panopticon, we are stuck with a singular perspective. We can only try to predict what will work and we can only reason from past patterns. This world, we cannot deny, serves few and harms many. Its progress is, by no means, absolute. Yet, general human behaviour progresses as though and other system yields an increase in chaos and suffering. It is difficult to see how. Modest, incremental change is capable of vast improvements in living conditions. Many corners of the planet choose care in place of villainy during an emergency. Protect the weak, organize resources, exercise patience, build back better. It is time we realize this is the start of a long emergency. Longer, by far, than Covid-19.

Hi, I'm Elon Musk.

I bought 10 aircraft carriers and 100 B2 Bombers

Y'know for self defense.

10 LV Spheres for propaganda via Xitter.

100 skyscrapers to house and work (to death) my loyal subjects.

100 cruise ships as breeding grounds from which Ill grow for my genetically superior labour force.

4 Superyachts as my pied á terre, so to speak. 1 private jet to ferry between them. And, a fleet of ten helicopters to journey over ground to them.

3000 tanks for crowd control and personal security.

And the remaining $364.795 B are to feed, clothe, and fuel this small garrison nation — about 8 million of the best people — I've invented. That said, there's just one problem. I have all this capacity to make Universal High Income. But, this planet is too hot, the storms are too large, the food is not growing, the people outside my fief are angry, and I can't get a decent lab-grown cheezeburger anywhere.

So, if the rest of you would kindly fuck off to Mars on these rockets you'll build and pay for, the rest of us can enjoy the fruits of your stolen labours.

Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Good buddy of mine spent 5 years in Calgary and has only good things to saw. The Tarsands really pushed things in that province out of joint.

I'd like to spend some time in Van. I was in Victoria for a few days and Nanaimo for a few more. But Van and Tofino were bridges too far on that trip.

Portland was the West Coast city that was outstanding to me. Victoria was cute. Seattle was excessive.

The first bit, living in Seoul, was youth and low cost of living in Seoul. I had debt, but my Thailand, China, and Australia trips were done on the cheap.

The next bit, living in Kuwait, was making oil money, zeroing out my debts, and having no mortgage and no kids. It was pretty sweet. But, still, I lived in the desert.

The next bit, living in Guate, was still no mortgage and no debt. My eldest was around for my last two years there. But, again, low cost of living and flying was a boon.

Since returning to Canada, I have only been to cities to which I can drive. I still pretty new to having a mortgage.

That said, I'm not planning any trips until sometime after 2037. If, yknow, there's still a world then.